1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates generally to wireless carriers, Internet service providers (ISPs), and information content delivery services/providers. More particularly, it relates to Wireless Telecommunication, ANSI-41D Wireless Intelligent Network (WIN) applications and prepaid applications.
2. Background of Related Art
In recent years, the telecommunication industry has seen an explosive growth both in the number of the types of services offered and in the number of service providers. Among those numerous services now being offered, prepaid call service may be one of the fastest growing segments in the telecommunication industry today.
As the name implies, a prepaid call service allows a customer of the service to pay in advance for the use of the provider""s network resources in making a telephone call. The prepaid call service provides, among other things, an alternative option for a telephone user who might otherwise not be able to obtain the traditional postpaid telephone services because, e.g., of a bad credit rating, or of being in a geographical area where post paid service is unavailable.
The world-wide prepaid call services market is projected to grow tremendously in the next few years, fueling a frenzy among service suppliers to quickly add prepaid service to the list of services they already offer.
Currently no simple system is known to allow a user to themselves select pre-paid service using a standard WIN approach. Conventionally, prepaid services require a modification to the subscriber""s profile stored in a home location register (HLR). Existing solutions are typically non-standardized, inflexible approaches and/or require intervention by a customer care representative or other person representing the service provider. The conventional approaches are labor intensive and ultimately expensive.
There is a need for a technique and architecture which allows a subscriber to themselves change service to a particular mobile device between postpaid and prepaid on a substantially real-time basis, allowing frequent postpaid/prepaid changes to the mobile device (e.g., on a call-by-call basis), preferably using standard WIN messages and commands.
A method of allowing a wireless device to change its prepaid payment mode substantially in real-time in accordance with the principles of the present invention comprises provisioning at least one trigger in a wireless subscriber profile file relating to a prepaid mode for the wireless device. To switch payment modes, the at least one trigger is removed from the wireless subscriber""s profile file in response to keyed input from the wireless device. The provisioning and the removing steps may each be performed without customer representative intervention.